Telangana inks pact with WRI India Ross for road safety

Hyderabad: The Telangana government today said it is launching the “Smart Streets Lab” programme in collaboration with the WRI (World Resources Institute) Ross Centre India to improve road safety in the state capital by employing technology.

The Lab will launch a pilot on innovative road-safety and women safety solutions and leverage new developments in technology and IT to transform the streets of Hyderabad, an official release said.

“Through the Smart Streets Lab, Telangana endeavours to source technological interventions from inter-connected and inter-networking smart devices, also known as Internet of Things, to product innovation that can make the streets truly secure, equitable and easy-to-navigate for citizens of Hyderabad,” it said.

A portal seeking applications for projects designed to make the streets of the city ‘smart’ has been created and will take project proposals by civil society, entrepreneurs, technology companies, consortiums and partnerships.

About 10 shortlisted projects will undergo an intensive boot-camp training aimed at helping the innovators transition from a prototype stage to a revenue generation stage.

DLABS-the incubation and acceleration arm of the Indian School of Business (ISB), Bosch and WRI India–will train the innovators on the pilot design and implementation.

From October to December, the Lab will support the launch and operationalisation of a few pilots in the city, it added.

Jyot Chadha, Director, Urban Innovation, WRI India Ross Center, said, “the Smart Streets Lab is a citizen’s workshop of sorts. It attempts to offer the road users a platform, where they can devise tech-based projects that will help the city authorities build safer streets.

“Cross stakeholder collaborations, bringing together citizens, start-ups, corporates and governments is important to improve road safety in a city like Hyderabad, which is among the most populous urban agglomeration in India”.

Jayesh Ranjan, Secretary, Information Technology, Government of Telangana, added, “With a large number of vehicles on streets, Hyderabad sees a massive traffic congestion every day. Considering the city is an IT hub, there is a great potential in leveraging the technological advancement to find road safety solutions. Such platforms will go a long way in building smarter and efficient cities”.